The benefits of urgent care centers versus and emergency center are many. Though many people may think that an emergency center is their only option for medical treatment if they are on a tight schedule or do not have a general care physician, emergency centers tend to be crowded and too busy. This means that patients must waste up to an hour in an emergency center before they are even seen by a nurse, and their total stay tends to be hours long, especially if they are considered to be a non emergent case. These emergency healthcare services are often prohibitively expensive as well, ranging up past one thousand dollars per visit, depending on the testing and treatment that is deemed to be required.
On the other hand, an urgent care center has a considerably lower average weight time than an emergency center. It has been found that more than sixty percent of all urgent care centers in the United States have a wait time of only around fifteen minutes and that the typical patient is in and out of the urgent care center within just an hour. More than ninety percent of all urgent care centers were able to keep their overall wait time at no more than thirty minutes total, meaning that speed and efficiency are often found in the typical urgent care center.
Though many people think of family urgent care centers are only ideal for small injuries and minor illnesses, the opposite is often true. In fact, as many as sixty five percent of all cases seen in an emergency room setting could have been appropriately treated in an urgent care setting and of all the cases that are scene in an urgent care location, less than five percent are ultimately sent to a hospital and emergency room, meaning that the majority of all urgent care centers in the United States are well equipped to treated illnesses and injuries ranging from minor to severe. In fact, as many as eighty percent of all urgent care locations are able to diagnose and treat fractures. Urgent care centers are also ideal for diagnosing and treating sprained ankles, the flu, the common cold, and chest infections, as well as conditions typically scene in small children like ear infections.
Urgent care centers are becoming more and more popular, with many people choosing an urgent care location over an emergency center. While the typical emergency center is crowded and expensive, the average urgent care location is usually anything but. Though there may be a wait time, it is usually no more than thirty minutes, with many centers averaging a wait time as low as fifteen minutes. An urgent care location is typically less expensive than the costs accrued in an emergency center as well, with patients – even those who are uninsured – often paying no more than just over two hundred dollars. Urgent care centers saw nearly fifteen thousand patients in 2015 alone and one quarter of all medical patients in the United States reported visiting an urgent care center at least once in 2016.